Paridiots {VOLUME 2}: How to Survive a Fantasy World with a Party Full of Idiots

[4] Until the Girls Argue

1

Currently, my party and I were stuck, knee-deep, in the middle of the lagoon. And not just any normal bay of water- a slimy, murky pit of hell.

"It can't be... anywhere else... right?" Seiko panted, her eyes squeezed shut and her limbs hanging limply at her sides. Seemed she wasn't happy with our trudge either, despite the fact that she initiated it.

Let me recap; Seiko was currently trying to finish her stupid programmed little "Seiko-dex". Apparently, she'd based her whole scheme off of an old field trip they'd taken in her grade school, where they'd traveled throughout the entirety of World:Zero to find every recordable monster originating from it. Of course, they were well protected the entire time, so the idea was easily permitted.

And then there was our makeshift little plan. For starters, we were using Tamagotchi's with a jacked-up line of code shoved into it (somehow), and second of all, we had no tour guide to lead us around nor heavily armored soldiers to accompany and defend us from plausible threats. So while we were currently not only exhausted from our journey, we'd also crossed paths with dangerous entities multiple times, plus were missing a singular monster from our machines.

Excluding me, of course...

The previous night, I had finally decided to pursue Blair when she snuck out of our inn for the umpteenth time. It had gone stealthily well at first, before I accidentally gave away my position and was forced to flee back home. And, unfortunately for me, I hadn't realized until I got back that my Tamagotchi was no longer tied around my neck.

Wretched little device... I now have to play it off that I simply couldn't find it. Gahh, I really should've just left it back at the inn!

But, uh, back to the moment.

"Perhaps... this was not such a great idea," Blair pursed her lips. "For goodness' sake, we don't even know what we are looking for."

"It's just... one creature, meow. And we've looked everywhere!"

"Except here, obviously," I muttered under my breath. "But based on the looks of it, there's nothin' juicy to report around here."

"Suppose it is an underwater creature?"

"An amphibian?"

"Amphibians have to do with both water and land, meow."

"Don't bust your terminology on me! It was just an idea!"

Our quip was followed up by a hefty sigh from Blair. "We should cross out my previous idea, on second thought. The water is too shallow to contain any creatures we cannot already see from the eye."

"Yeah, probably," I sniffled. Within some of the waters we had traversed were fish with sharp, razor-like gills that had beefed with our ankles, but that was about it. Nothing we hadn't already seen on our first day of the tour, where we had already browsed every available monster. "Well, you did say this was an old program, Seiko. Maybe it's a creature that went extinct?"

"Nothing has gone extinct in quite a while around here, if I am correct." Blair shrugged, holding her palms out in a stiff gesture with a tiny shake of her head. "It may just be a bug in the device. I suggest we give up for now."

"But seeing that blank space is so unsatisfying, meow...!"

I sighed, coming to a halt before a pile of tall grass. "Just give it up, Seiko. The device must be rigged or something. Maybe we crapped up the coding."

"I swear it was programmed right. Grh..." Her entire body drooped further, if that was even possible. Something about her right now reminds me of a slug.